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Tuesday, December 29, 2015

General Schwarzkopf dies

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General Norman Schwarzkopf

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf,
who commanded the American-led Operation Desert Storm forces that crushed Iraq
in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and became the nation’s most acclaimed military
hero since the midcentury exploits of Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas
MacArthur, died Thursday in Tampa, Fla. He was 78.

“Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf orchestrated one of the most lopsided
victories in modern warfare, a six-week blitzkrieg by a broad coalition of
forces with overwhelming air superiority that liberated tiny Kuwait from Iraqi
occupation, routed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and virtually destroyed
Iraq’s infrastructure, all with relatively light allied losses.

Three months after the war, he signed a $5 million contract with Bantam
Books for the world rights to his memoirs, “It Doesn’t Take a Hero,” written
with Peter Petre and published in 1992.

Between battles, he listened to Pavarotti, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.

His father, New Jersey’s first state police superintendent, investigated
the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping.